ABSTRACT
The appointment of Lord Pethick-Lawrence as Secretary of State for India was also a welcome change from that of his predecessor, Leo Amery, though India hoped soon to see this office, symbolic of its subjection, abolished altogether. The well-intentioned Labour Government found its sincere aspirations for Indian independence doubted and criticized. Gandhi had lost faith in British intentions about Indian freedom, Jinnah had lost faith in fair treatment for Muslims at the hands of a Hindu majority.’ Vijaya Lakshmi returned to India to find this mood of uneasy suspicion, but the atmosphere was none the less totally changed from that which had surrounded her departure in December 1944. Vijaya Lakshmi’s own career now took the decisive turning which was to determine its direction for the next fifteen years. The India to which Vijaya Lakshmi returned as a Congress Minister had already entered the period in which eminent Indians would no longer be shadowed by British agents.
